Blackberries have problems living through our winters. Wild blackberries grow everywhere near the Pacific and show up here where the vines may grow but might not produce much of anything and seem to only live out short lives.
Raspberries are a cinch
. But, I had the advantage of watching raspberries and domestic blackberries grow in close proximity for about 20 years. A neighbor set up 2 trellises with about a 4' path between. They were also only about 6' from my garden.
The blackberries produced a fairly nice crop in this sheltered garden but still struggled to survive the winters. After about 10 years, they were either dead on their trellis or just pulled because of their weakened condition. However, the neighbor had allowed them to move across the path and they were pushing out the raspberries!
By the time I left that garden, there was only 1 or 2 blackberry vines but they had completely displaced the raspberries! For about the final 5 years that I was there, the raspberries were trying to escape into
my garden. The neighbor and I set up a trellis for them right on the border but, during the final year, a blackberry was crawling onto that trellis!
Anyway
, the lesson that I came away with was don't plant these 2 berries close together. Even if the blackberries can only cling to life year after year, they will crowd out the raspberries.
Steve
yeah - that'll happen about as quickly as that old swing rescue - it's STILL sitting next to the barn waiting for SOMEONE to actually show up when they say they will and help me move it.
